All is for Naught
by Clarenova
Summary: When studying goes awry, and mental stability is not exactly true, what happens when a poor student suffers the preexam night jitters and gets paranoid? A short ficlet. Read and review, please!


::All is for Naught!:: 

Disclaimer: Nah... It's mine, except the worlds of which I implement inside of it, such as J.R.R Tolkien's. 

A/n: Hmm... What should I say? Every student has a nightmare of their big exam the next day, and since my P[rimary] L[eaving] S[chool] E[xamination], or more commonly the PSLE, is starting tomorrow and I really need to get these jitters offa me, here this is: Personification of the jitters. 

* 

I looked at my table in its glorious mess of unfiled paperwork, untidy scribbles and illegible notes. My room was in an uproar, with books, papers, files and textbooks lying like the dead carcasses of war on the floor and tables, not to mention the bed with its ruffled sheets and battered pillows lying prostrate upon it. The radio was blaring some tune that seemed dysfunctional to my distorted mind as I tried to concentrate. The words on my notes, however, swam and danced some taunting jig in front of my eyes. 

'Stop it!', I hissed, as I tried to force them to stop dancing the cha-cha over my computer table. The music seemed to blast louder in return. My exhausted and overworked brain seemed to click off for a second and common sense left me altogether. The papers started to whirl as if blown up by some freak tornado that somehow managed to compact itself in my worthlessly tiny room. Books fell off the shelf and piled up like craggy peaks topped with shredded notes that flew, scattering on my head, which had grown smaller. I tried to scream, but no words came out as my vocal cords seemed to hibernate. The music distorted and changed, playing one of those Fantasia like tunes that drummed with a cushioned beat, taunting and devious in its intention to drive me mad, or at least less sane than I already was. The sheets, which were blue, formed an artificial sky around my head in a spiralling dome that twisted and turn, as my miniature form spun around wildly as I tried to co-ordinate myself with my surroundings. Packets of empty drinks, snack wrappers and littered debris started to pelt upon me, as I stumbled around the inferno and eternal limbo for the moment, driving me wild. 

It pounded, throbbed, circling and crying out, pointing intangible fingers at me and jeering at my incompetence until I screamed aloud and my voice returned to me, winding me by some miraculous reason. I shouted for a stop, placing my fingers around my ears and crying aloud. A sharp grip on my shoulder brought me back to reality, or so it seemed for a moment. Suddenly, as I raised my head, I discovered I was in some fine place, with towering waterfalls and trickling streams that flowed to a gushing river. Buildings with architecture unrivalled by any metallic beauty that ever existed in my time surrounded me with their tallow-whites and earthy colours, composing mainly of wood and silver. Intricate flower blossom designs with running carved vines that twisted madly around in incomprehensible patterns gave me a sense of enthralling feel to her. The birds chirped in innocent abandon, the leaves rustled comfortingly in the breeze. The trees themselves were mighty, yet not overbearing or too numerous. Just enough to have plenty of greenery to go around yet at the same time little enough to let breeze and sunlight filter through unhindered. It was, somehow to my disbelieving mind, like a meadow with trees... Moving on, it looked _familiar_ to me. As if I had seen it before, even maybe at a regular basis. As the deja vu settled in, I suddenly snapped to life. 

'Imladris!', I cried aloud to my amazement and delight. Imladris, Rivendell, the Elven kingdom of J.R.R Tolkein and my life obsession, the Elves! I was exhilarated. I greedily looked around, then suddenly remembered what had brought me there in the first place: The hand upon my shoulder. I spun around, and met with a _very_ tall person, no, check that, _elf!_ Blonde hair flowed down and the normal robes of the colours of Rivendell also was adorned upon the _elf_ with _pointed_ ears! I could have died right then save for the fact that I had a major exam the next, er... day. Time did not exactly matter at that... time? _Who cares anyway, _I thought distractedly, my earlier confusion turning into ecstatic glee and joy at the sudden disappearance of the daunting books and the even more sudden apparition of Rivendell. Rivendell! I spoke, for some reason, reverting to my (extremely faulty) Quenya for no apparent reason whatsoever, even though some part of me tugged at the fact that most of the people, no, _Elves,_ spoke Sindarin. Who cared? Elvish was Elvish, at any rate! 

'Imladris! Sinome ná Imladris! Haha! Loranyë!' [A rough translation (on both parts): Rivendell! This is Rivendell! Haha! I'm dreaming!] 

I looked back up at the Elf and the last of my sanity left me for the moment. 

'Ha! Sinome ná Imladris, elyë Glorfindel! Ha! Bruinen ta! Ar Anar carnë, Isil morë, ar roccor ortauva or Menel!' [A _very_ rough translation: Ha! This is Rivendell, you are Glorfindel! Ha! That is Bruinen! And the Sun is red, the moon black, and horses rise over the sky!] 

The elf looked down at me, evidently very, _very_ amused, then pulled my form off the ground. Odd. I never even noticed that I was sitting on the floor. 

'Anwa, Glorfindel ná im essë, nan roccor úvar ortauva or Menel... ' [True, Glorfindel is my name, but horses do not rise over the sky...] 

My legs wobbled uncertainly under my weight, and I felt strangely light and featherish, that strange feeling that comes over one when one feels half awake in the consciencous sense and as if only half of a person was there. My head swam uncertainly like a floating cloud that wanted to come down but only rose higher. I stumbled madly around for a bit, nearly falling back down again had it not been for Glorfindel catching me by the arm. I did not seem to notice as the world tunnelled in and blackness zoomed in rapidly before exploding out in a shower of indefinite shadowy bits of black nova in my eyesight. I walked straight into a tree. I tried to get myself to think straight, but my brain was not working at the time. I abruptly laughed aloud for no reason before I dropped straight into the Bruinen and passed out. I felt odd. Strange, I was out cold, at least the form in the Bruinen (of which I must assume is myself, well, because before I passed out I was quite sure I was in it), yet at the same time, I, presuming in-the-river-being-dragged-out-by-Glorfindel-I was I, was out cold, yet... My consciousness was not? That just did _not_ make sense. I had perfect control over my speech, movement, eyesight, and at least a semi-control over my thoughts within my body, but here I was, viewing everything _without_ a form. It defied everything I was thought in bother Science and English. I slapped myself mentally, and pondered again how I did that. I shook my (intangible) head, decided not to pursue the memory and plodded, no floated, erm no, _did not existed_ after Glorfindel. Moving forward, he dragged me towards the main area of Rivendell. I observed with curiosity, committing every precious second of this out-of-body experience so as never to forget it. Rivendell was exactly as I imagined it, mayhap even better. Yet if this was my imagination... Yet it could not be. I would never will myself to pass out in the Bruinen after telling an elf that horses could evidently fly. _Anyway_, my form and Glorfindel evidently met up with Elrond, who in turn dragged my form, soaking and leaving a dripping trail, towards what I presumed was the House of Healing. The next thing my intangible form felt was a sharp slap and everything seemed to be sucked forward by an irresistible vacuum with the, strange, ominous sound of a backwards tape recorder before I found myself as well, myself, again. I fluttered my newly rediscovered eyesight, and found myself in a most curious position, with three brown, two black and one blond head bent over my own. I started violently, shuddering as the sudden reintroduction of senses poured back into me. I quickly identified the faces as accurately as I could. The blond, most obviously, was Glorfindel, and one of the brunettes was most definitely Elrond. The black haired girl was probably Arwen, with the other black haired person beside her probably Aragorn. Seeing the two, identical, remaining faces, I had to search my memory a millisecond before their names occurred to me as Elladan and Elrohir. Was I so special that the whole royal Rivendell family, plus a twice born Balrog killer, came to see me being cold? I dismissed the thought, wondering whether this was going to help me with inspiration for my English Composition test the next day. I dismissed the thought, and all other thoughts for that matter, as my head started throbbing as if some mad axe man was chopping my head into small pieces. I muttered the first Elvish word that came to my lips. 

'Mana?' [What?] 

The heads seem to utter gasps before moving away, most unfortunately allowing the sun to filter through and blind my unprepared eyes. Gah. A voice spoke in English, to my great relief. 

'She is awake.' 

'I noticed.' 

'What _am_ I doing here?' I groggily shook my head. Elrond carefully raised an eyebrow. 

'Do you not know? You were going crazy back in your own world. Your own mind brought you here for a little bit of pressure relief, evidently. Anyway, it's time you left. You've had your fun.' I immediately started to protest. 

'But I don't _want_ to go back there! It's all paper and books!' Elrond did not really seem to be affected by my disapproval of being sent back to my dreary hell-hole back in my room where studying was a eminent devil of a thing. 

'You are, technically, not going back. You already _are_ back. Your imagination, along with information processed, is here. Worry not, whenever you feel stressed, your brain will overreact, and most probably cause you to either black out, or, as now, bring you here, or wherever you would wish had you been... more alert.' It did not sound like a very comforting prospect to me. 

'I don't want the dancing books and jeering papers!' 

'Ah. Some things, however, do have side effects. Goodbye.' 

Before I could say a word, I woke up, and I stared up into my computer screen. I shook my head, crying out to my overworked imagination as my head pounded mercilessly against my skull, and my eyesight swam for a moment and I dropped my head back down on the table to seek relief. 

Odd. 

My hair is wet.   
  
  



End file.
